Book Breaks with Michael Thurmond on James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey from Slave Trader to Abolitionist 

 

Date & Time:  December 29, 2024, 02:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

In British North America, James Oglethorpe played a pivotal role in founding Georgia, a colony distinct for its commitment to being slave free. What motivated this unusual stance? While some historians suggest that Georgia’s policy arose from concerns that White workers couldn’t thrive in regions where slavery was entrenched, there is another intriguing possibility. Michael Thurmond points to Oglethorpe’s intellectual exchanges with Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Olaudah Equiano, two of eighteenth-century England’s most influential Black men. This narrative suggests one origin point for the interracial anti-slavery activism that breathed life into the formal abolitionist movement.

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